Small
by kjm126316
Summary: In which Toothless is perfectly fine with being smaller than his draconic contemporaries, until the day he is not. (AKA the sort-of unnoficial sequel to 'Perthro' nobody wanted but got anyways.) I do not own How To Train Your Dragon


**Toothless was small.** It wasn't a question, it was a statement, a fact of life. Toothless the Night Fury, was indeed, small.

Compared to the average viking, he was huge, don't get me wrong. But up against something like a Monstrous Nightmare, or Hel, even a Hideous Zippleback, he was tiny, petite even.

But Toothless was ok with this. He wasn't blind to the fact that he was smaller than most of his dragon companions. It was nothing unusual to him- Night Furies were naturally on the small side, and what they lacked in size they made up for in cunning, speed, and intelligence.

(Granted, Toothless had always been smaller than even his own brothers and sisters- what could he say, he wound up being the runt of the litter.

They learned not to mess with him _real_ quick though, because even as a baby Toothless wouldn't tolerate crap from anyone.

Also, apparently he'd had a bit of a temper as well, or so he'd been told.)

And besides, the other dragons still respected him, so why should be be bothered by his size? He wasn't bothered, thank you very much.

Until the day he was.

As mentioned before, he had the respect of the other dragons just by title; Night Furies were known to be downright vicious at times and _never_ missed.

Like, ever.

If only he had the respect of the humans as well.

Well, rephrase maybe: if only the humans didn't think he was useless because of his size.

It started with small things, at first. Things like not letting him push up the posts (which was fine by him, honestly, it was a chore Toothless preferred not to do anyways,) giving him the lighter things to carry, ect, ect.

But it all reached a screeching halt the day Hiccup's father, Stoick, forbid them to go on the scouting mission with the others.

"And why can't we go, Dad?" Hiccup asked, a familiar note of irritation in his voice. "Toothless is the fastest dragon out there, we could be there and back in less than a day-"

"No, Hiccup, my answer is final. " The redhead rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, you keep saying that, yet you've yet to give me a definitive answer as to why." Stoick sighed. Damn his son's stubbornness and habit of using big words when he got mouthy!

"Toothless is a small dragon, Hiccup," he said bluntly, either not knowing or not caring that the dragon in question was within hearing range. "The winds up there are untamed even by Thor himself- the two of you would be thrown into the ocean!"

Hiccup rolled his eyes; "Seriously? Come _on_ Dad-"

From the corner, Toothless watched the two of them bicker, virtually unnoticeable. Two words ran through the dragon's mind;

 _Small dragon._

Slowly the words started to distort;

Weak _dragon._

Toothless pawed anxiously at the ground, mentally telling himself to snap out of it. He was a Night Fury, for Odin's sake, the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself! Why, not even two years ago the mere _sight_ of him would've sent even the bravest viking running!

The knowledge did nothing to comfort him.

 _You've lost your edge,_ Toothless' brain told him. _You're nothing more than a kitten in their eyes, now._

By the time Hiccup had finished arguing with his father and turned around, Toothless was gone.

The redhead groaned and resisted the urge to stomp on the ground; "I _hate_ it when he disappears like that," he fumed. "Toothless?"

There wasn't much in way of a reply, not that the brunet had really expected one in the first place.

He sighed and turned to his father; "Any idea where he could've gone, Dad?" The chief shrugged.

"He's your dragon, lad," was the response. "You know 'im better than I do."

Hiccup huffed and rolled his eyes, mentally going through the list of places his dragon was likely to run off to.

He froze as the answer occurred to him; "I think I know where he is."

 _BLAM!_

 _BLAM!_

 _BLAM!_

The roar of an irate Night Fury followed by numerous plasma blasts could be heard for miles on end. From the forest, numerous birds took flight, squawking their distress.

Toothless was well aware that any viking worth their helmet could probably hear him, but as none of the villagers were neither brave nor stupid enough to come between an angry night fury and whatever he was shooting at, Toothless wasn't too worried.

 _BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!_

Glaring, the Night Fury scowled up at the sky, tail whipping back and forth irritably as he growled deep in the back of his throat. A second later both the motion and the growling stopped, and Toothless collapsed on the ground, looking around the cove miserably.

 _Well done Toothless,_ he thought suddenly. _You've effectively trapped yourself in here._

The dragon groaned and let his head hit the ground with a resounding _thud!_ Stars and suns above, he just couldn't get it right today, could he?

Despondently, the Night Fury continued to regard his surroundings. The walls bore numerous scorch marks, both old and new- stars above knew this cove had seen more than its fair share of plasma blasts from an angry Night Fury.

Yet this wasn't what was bothering him.

No, what was bothering him was honestly… really pathetic, in his humble opinion, and Toothless plopped his head on the ground and covered his eyes with his paws like he'd seen Hiccup do before.

This, he was sure, was his lowest moment. Forget being shot out of the sky, forget crashing into the walls as he tried to escape, this, _this_ was his lowest moment.

"Toothless?"

 _Ah yes. Just what I wanted. An audience to view my shame. How wonderful._

Hiccup wasn't really sure what he was expecting when he ventured into the cove. While a defeated Night Fury and scorched walls admittedly were not very high on the 'expected list,' as he'd dubbed it in his head, somehow the redhead wasn't too surprised either way.

"Toothless?" He called again. Said dragon's ears perked up at the sound of his voice, but other than that the Night Fury gave no indication he'd heard him.

Hiccup frowned and meandered across the cove, staring at the scorch marks adorning the walls with something akin to awe in his eyes; "So, what exactly did the walls do to warrant your rage, almighty Night Fury?"

There wasn't a response, which worried Hiccup- usually saying something like that got him at least a glare from Toothless, more often an ear to the face.

Something was wrong.

Hiccup sat adjacent to the great black dragon; "Toothless, what's wrong?" The dragon tensed and growled deep in the back of his throat. Turning his head slightly, Toothless glared irritably at his rider for a moment before turning away with a huff.

 _Nothing._ Hiccup snorted.

"Yeah, and I'm the chief of Berk," he replied. "Seriously, bud, what's eating at you?" Toothless sighed and took his paws off his head. He regarded his rider carefully for a minute before asking;

 _Am I a small dragon, Hiccup?_

The viking blinked; "What?" He asked, thinking he'd misheard. When Toothless didn't say anything more, he frowned; "Compared to vikings? Not really? Other dragons? A bit, yeah." Toothless seemed to deflate at his words. Now Hiccup was really worried; "Toothless, what's-"

 _Did you know I was the runt of the litter?_ Toothless asked randomly, cutting the viking off completely. _I was the smallest among my brothers and sisters. They used to push me around a lot._

Hiccup scratched his head, unsure of what the Night Fury was leading to. Usually he was able to get a pretty good read on what the dragon was feeling exactly, but not today- it seemed Toothless had put up his mental walls for this conversation.

Either that or Hiccup was losing his touch. Honestly, he wasn't sure which option was worse.

 _Never let me do anything,_ Toothless continued, speaking at a tone Hiccup had to strain to hear. _Always made me stay at home while they went out, never let me out of their sights, always had me do the easy stuff-_ He cut himself off suddenly, realizing he'd delved into ramble territory. To take attention off this fact, he quirked an eyebrow at his rider and asked; _Sound familiar?_

Toothless was referring to the vikings' recent treatment of him, but Hiccup's eyes had gained that faraway look that implied he wasn't really there at that very moment, that he was off on his own little trip down memory lane.

"Yeah..." he agreed after a beat of silence. "Bit familiar."

Toothless sighed and plopped his head on the ground again, ears cast downward.

 _I hate feeling useless,_ he said finally. Hiccup hummed.

"Believe me bud, the feeling is mutual." Toothless looked at Hiccup sideways. The viking only hesitated a moment before giving an explanation.

"Well… you've noticed how I'm a bit… accident-prone, right?" Toothless snorted.

 _I daresay 'a bit' is an understatement, but yes, I've noticed._ Hiccup cracked a small grin.

"Well, before I met you, I was even moreso. I also couldn't lift an axe or sword to save my life- I mean, look at me, I'm 90 pounds soaking wet- so to compensate for it, I made machines that could essentially, do the job for me." Hiccup twisted his hands together. "Problem was, combined with my accident-prone… ness, very rarely did things actually work out in my favour." He twisted his hands together.

"They broke a lot," he confessed. "And they didn't break quietly- did you know I once took out half the village in one go?"

No, Toothless did not know that, though upon hearing it he had no trouble believing it.

"Either way, half the village took to calling me 'Hiccup the Useless,'" he said, absently ripping up blades of grass. "Well, initially they wanted to go with 'Hiccup the Destructive,' but apparently my great-great grandfather already had that title so-" he shrugged. "Hiccup the Useless it was."

Toothless had gone very quiet. Though he didn't say anything, several things had clicked- why the villagers were so afraid to leave him in the forge unsupervised for more than four hours, why anyone winced whenever he mentioned one of his 'inventions.'

But most of all, it explained why Hiccup had always come to the cove smelling of loneliness and sadness.

(In that moment, Toothless vowed to himself to never forgive the village, not as long as he lived.)

"My point, I guess, is that vikings aren't the smartest" Hiccup says, and with a start Toothless realizes he's been found out, that Hiccup _knows_ what's got his tailfins ( _tailfin)_ in a twist.

Honestly, he shouldn't be surprised- Hiccup could be amazingly perceptive when he wanted to be.

"They see someone small and perceive them to be weak even though that's not true. Well," Hiccup coughed and then continued on in a slightly sheepish tone. "Not _always_ true. But don't listen to 'em bud," he concluded, scratching the dragon behind the ears. A mischievous look entered his eyes; "After all, I like you well enough, isn't my opinion enough?"**

Toothless groaned and collapsed on the ground.

 _Will you let that die already?_ He griped. _You've run it to the ground and yet you still keep going, why?_ Hiccup smiled slightly.

"Because it's _funny,"_ he said, then stood up. "Now come on, let's get back before someone notices we're gone."

(Later that day, in a 'rare' show of defiance, Hiccup convinced Toothless they should sneak out and go on the mission.

They did get it done in less than a day, and from that point forward, the rest of the Vikings made an effort to not mistreat Toothless, accidentally or otherwise, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by the Night Fury.

He made it a point to give Hiccup extra fish as his way of saying thank you.)

 ****This is in reference to another HTTYD fic of mine, Perthro. You can go read it if you'd like; it's still there.**

 **Well, here's another HTTYD oneshot! One thing I'd always really liked about the series as a whole was how much** _ **smaller**_ **Toothless was than the other dragons. It seemed to me it was a parallel between him and Hiccup. I could also see the vikings noticing this and then acting accordingly and then this happened.**

 **Au revoir, little biscuits!**


End file.
